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ericrlarson.bsky.social
Associate professor in freshwater ecology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Crayfish, invasive species, environmental DNA, and more. https://publish.illinois.edu/erlarson/
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Enjoyed this opportunity to talk about our newly described Pacifastacus crayfishes from western North America yesterday

Not a bad conference location when you can encounter a manatee just down the road from the convention center #2025SFS

Visiting a new place (San Juan, Puerto Rico) for my favorite conference (Society for Freshwater Science) #2025SFS

US conservation science is at serious risk. Join a virtual rally May 22 (12–1pm ET) to defend the USGS Ecosystems Mission Area—vital for tracking wildlife, disease, ecosystems & biodiversity. Featuring Drew Lanham & Kenn Kaufman. It’s free, it’s virtual, it’s vital. www.mobilize.us/nwf/event/79...

BioTime v2 is out!!🚨 - Explore the largest #database of #biodiversity time-series studies in the world. Now with more studies🗄️🔍👩‍💻, more species 🌱🦎🦇🐟🌳🐜🐚🪸🐀, more locations 🌐…just more! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... Free to download, free to use! #BioTime #Macroecology #GlobalChange

The definitive work on Chicago area fishes is out, my Sunday column. chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors/202...

This work originated, 18 years ago, with an NSF East Asia and Pacific Summer Institute (EAPSI) fellowship when I was a PhD student. EAPSI was a small award ($5k) to foster international collaborations, that involved spending 10 weeks in a host country with a mentor. #WithoutNSF #SaveNSF

The result of nearly two decades of work, my coauthors and I have just described two new crayfish species from western North America: introducing the Misfortunate Crayfish and Okanagan Crayfish (doi.org/10.11646/zoo...). More to follow soon, but it should be open access - message if you need a PDF.

It is hard to imagine a world without the USGS Ecosystems Mission, the bird banding lab, the Coop Unit program, etc. but apparently that is what America voted for and what this administration plans to do: wildlife.org/usgs-cuts-wo...

The first paper from my PhD is now out in @aslo.org Limnology and Oceanography Letters! We used nine years of daily temp and chl data from Peter, Paul, and Tuesday Lakes to show that aquatic heatwaves increased surface chlorophyll concentrations during 24 out of 29 events. doi.org/10.1002/lol2...

Sunrise on the Sangamon River, Illinois

Just stumbled across this, another solid paper from the Kelly lab! Great to see work like this on making eDNA interpretation more accessible to end-users besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

New freshwater #crayfish species from northern Tasmania! Engaeus excavator (Richardson 2025). It excavates very deep burrows (>2 m) in clay soils. Called “excavator”, because of its burrowing ability and the requirement to survey with an excavator!

Are crayfish native to upper Columbia River tributaries of the United States? Hamp Kennedy and Susie Adams of the US Forest Service apply primary historical sources and indigenous knowledge to cryptogenic species in a new paper at WIREs Water: wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Hey C-U folks: it's Orange and Blue week at UIUC, and you can support a huge number of great initiatives on campus. I'm partial to the Writers Workshop (payment.giving.illinois.edu/schools/Univ...), but all campaigns here: payment.giving.illinois.edu/orange-and-b....

This week is #InvasiveSpeciesWeek! It’s a little late in the week but I will be running a sale on my invasive species sticker until next Thursday! #InvasiveSpecies #Conservation #Ecology 👩🏻‍🔬🌿🌎

Please help spread the word. Open tech position. My lab at Loyola University Chicago. www.careers.luc.edu/postings/31037 A project to improve eDNA resources and use eDNA to study fish diversity in Illinois's Fox River. @danielbolnick.bsky.social @ambikamath.bsky.social @ericrlarson.bsky.social

For the right person, this is a unicorn dream job. 🧪🌎 www.linkedin.com/posts/north-...

Can a new DNA test save the world’s rarest turtle?

We're hiring! Come work at UIUC! Assistant Professor in Molecular Epidemiology Tenure-track, 9 month position Closing date March 21 illinois.csod.com/ux/ats/caree...

It has been cold in Illinois the last few weeks, but that has kept one of our study sites awfully pretty

Deleting old tweets, and this came up. I forgot about it!! Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, & Wisconsin pawpaw presence by county (green), observations (green dots), and the lovely butterfly they are exclusively host to: zebra swallowtail presence (pink), and zebra swallowtail observations (pink dot)

Teachers! IL-IN Sea Grant is looking to understand the use of live crayfish in classroom settings. If you are (or know) a science teacher in grades 3-12 in the #GreatLakes region who has used live crayfish in the classroom, we'd like to chat! Interest form: purdue.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

It IS the Year of the Snake, after all… onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....